By PAMELA WOOD, Annapolis Capital
Published 03/21/10
Walk along the beach, drive over the Bay Bridge or peer out from a boat, and the Chesapeake Bay often looks lovely.
Sunlight glistens on the surface as the gentle waves roll by. As the weather warms, more boats will dot the bay, with sailors seeking the thrill of harnessing the wind and anglers searching for a trophy rockfish.
But below the surface, the nation's largest estuary is in deep trouble.
Nutrient and sediment pollution choke oxygen from the water, leading to vast "dead zones" where fish, crabs and oysters can't survive.
Sprawling suburban developments gobble up forests and wetlands in favor of roadways, lawns and homes. Some people even get sick from swimming in the bay's creeks and rivers.
"The condition of the bay is not good and people are becoming attuned to that," said Kim Coble, who heads up the nonprofit Chesapeake Bay Foundation's efforts in Maryland.
For decades now, government officials and environmental activists have attempted to restore the Chesapeake Bay's water quality to healthy levels.
But the road to restoration is littered with broken promises and failed efforts. Official cleanup agreements were signed with much fanfare in 1983, 1987 and 2000; laws have been passed; special taxes have been levied - yet the bay's health has remained unacceptably poor.
In recent months, there's been a renewed effort to clean up the bay, including significant attention from the federal government.
Some involved in bay cleanup said they think this could be a fresh start for the bay. Others see more of the same failures.
"Everyone's talking like this time is going to be different," said Chris Trumbauer, a biologist who patrols the West and Rhode rivers as a riverkeeper. "We'll see."
The Chesapeake Bay, it seems, is at a crossroads. Is there any hope left?
What's wrong
Most of the Chesapeake's troubles can be traced back to one simple fact: There's been an exponential growth of people living on the land that drains into the bay.
Whether it's through farming, fishing, fertilizing the lawn, driving cars, building new homes and businesses, using "dirty" electricity, failing to pick up pet waste or just plain flushing the toilet, the 17 million people who live in the bay's six-state, 64,000-square-mile watershed send huge amounts of nutrient and sediment pollution flowing into the Chesapeake each year.
All of those nutrients and all of that sediment spur algae growth, cloud the water, choke out oxygen and make it impossible for aquatic wildlife to survive.
As such, the bay has declining populations of blue crabs, oysters and many fish. Wetlands and forests are threatened and sea-level rise could swamp the shorelines. There's constant pressure for development, especially along the water. Beaches are periodically closed due to high bacteria levels in the water and swimmers are being sickened by pathogens and scary skin infections.
Those problems mean the Chesapeake Bay does not even come close to meeting the requirement of the federal Clean Water Act for "fishable and swimmable" waters.
In fact, the bay is so unhealthy that it is on the Clean Water Act's list of the nation's "impaired waters."
"In my lifetime - I'm 35 - I've seen the water quality get worse," said Trumbauer, the West-Rhode Riverkeeper. "I've physically seen it. There are stories like mine all over the state. The bay is such a part of Maryland. We have a right to see it's restored to a functional, healthy ecosystem. Is that possible? It is. It's going to be hard, but I'm not going to give up yet."
'Three-legged' stool
Fingers have been pointed in almost every direction, looking for a surefire explanation for why restoration has largely been a failure.
Some of the accusations: elected officials don't have political will to pass tough pollution laws, people don't want to pay more money or sacrifice to clean the bay, the federal government hasn't cared enough.
But many involved in the restoration effort - both inside the official government program as well as activists, academics and observers on the outside - have shelved their complaints in the last year. There's been a renewed sense of commitment to the bay and a new series of efforts at the federal level.
Chuck Fox has been trying to clean up the Chesapeake Bay since 1983, working for the state, the feds and in the world of nonprofit organizations.
Now his title is "senior adviser on the Chesapeake Bay and the Anacostia River" for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Sitting in his sparse Eastport office overlooking a parking lot, Fox pledges hope for the bay. But he doesn't have rose-colored glasses - he knows this is a tough fight.
"We will know much more whether we're succeeding or not in the next year," he said.
Why is the next year so important?
There are perhaps three answers to that question, all in the form of government-ese: total maximum daily load, Executive Order 13508 and the Chesapeake Clean Water Act.
Fox calls those three actions a "three-legged stool" that stands a good chance of finally making a significant difference in the health of the Chesapeake.
The total maximum daily load or TMDL is often called a "pollution budget" or "pollution diet."
Right now, the feds and the states are figuring out the maximum amount of pollution the bay can handle and dividing it among the rivers that feed the bay. By 2025, state and local governments should have all the programs in place to get the pollution down to the assigned numbers.
Along the way, the federal government can step in with sanctions - yanking funding, blocking permits - if state's aren't doing a good enough job.
TMDLs are in place in waterways all over the country and don't often make much of a difference. But Fox said the Chesapeake's plan could be different. He said the Clean Water Act has specific language that allows the EPA to better enforce the bay's pollution diet.
"We are trying to implement the TMDL program here in the Chespeake Bay in an innovative way to improve accountability," Fox said, promising the plan will be "rigorous."
In addition to the pollution budget, federal agencies are working to improve their bay cleanup efforts following an executive order issued last year by President Barack Obama.
The executive order - No. 13508 - declares the bay "a national treasure" and calls on the federal government to do more for the bay. Their plans are to be finalized this May, one year after Obama issued the order.
As well, Congress is considering a bill from Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin, U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings and others called the Chesapeake Clean Water Act.
The bill requires many things that already are being done through the pollution budget and the executive order. But it also sends more money to the Chesapeake to pay for cleanup, and it sets up a program to allow the trading of pollution credits, much like the "cap-and-trade" programs for greenhouse gas emissions to the air.
Will it work?
Coble of the bay foundation said the pollution budget, the executive order and the attention in Congress give her hope for the bay's future.
What's most critical, she said, is making sure that the pollution budget is enforceable - that there will be consequences if promises are broken.
The lack of consequences has been a key criticism of the bay cleanup programs up until now.
Bay cleanup agreements, signed again and again by governors and federal officials in splashy events, haven't had any consequences built into them. They had goals that were so far out in the future that the people who signed the agreements were no longer in office by the time the goals came due.
Now, bay governors are working on two-year promises for pollution reductions as they work on the long-term goal of the pollution budget and getting the bay off the list of the nation's "impaired waters" by 2025.
Coble, who has spent her career working on the bay, said the key players in bay restoration have learned from their mistakes.
She remembers hashing out the details and language of the Chesapeake 2000 agreement. That agreement set a cleanup deadline of 2010, a goal that very clearly has been blown.
"Everybody at the table is a lot smarter," Coble said. "I'm not going to make the same mistakes."
Still, restoring the health of the Chesapeake Bay is going to cost money - which is in short supply - and it's going to require changing attitudes, she said.
While the debates have shifted from "what do we have to do" to "how do we do it," Coble said there's still too much finger pointing.
Often, she said, one industry or region begs off of making changes because they only contribute a certain percent of overall pollution.
"If you're saying, 'I contribute,' then you stop and say, 'I have work to do,' " Coble said.
Trumbauer, the riverkeeper, shares Coble's concern.
He said the most common thing he hears is: "That's such a small part of the problem, why should we bother? The real problem is 'fill-in-the-blank.' "
"Guess what?" Trumbauer said. "Every single pollution source is saying the same thing. It's an endless circle."
In recent weeks, developers and boaters have made arguments along those lines in the General Assembly in attempts to defeat bills requiring improved stormwater controls on new developments and expanding "no discharge" zones for treated boat waste.
Fox, the EPA adviser on the bay, said he thinks bay cleanup is possible. It won't be easy, but he points to air quality as inspiration.
"We, as a nation, have seen dramatic improvement in air quality," he said.
It hasn't been cheap, and often it's been controversial, but America's skies are cleaner than they used to be. Perhaps the same is in store for the Chesapeake Bay.
Fox points to two other signs of hope for the bay.
First, elected officials and government leaders finally understand the severe state the bay is in and what needs to be done. Politicians know they can't support only minor bay efforts - voters are demanding serious action.
Secondly, the Chesapeake Bay is in the residents' souls, he said. Marylanders are demanding a clean, healthy Chesapeake Bay and should settle for nothing less, he said.
"The Chesapeake Bay defines Maryland," Fox said. "Here in Anne Arundel County, the bay is around almost every corner. The Chesapeake Bay defines who we are."
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